From a Washinton Post article:
The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.
Four blue pills. Viagra.
“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.
The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills.
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- Chas on Open thread 11/23
- Monkeyhawk on Open thread 11/23
- Daniel on Too many exemptions
- BobChi on Let immigrants run
- Heckler on Open thread 11/23
- Chas on Open thread 11/23
- BobChi on Moore has had enough of House
- Chas on Open thread 11/23
- Heckler on Open thread 11/23
- Chas on Open thread 11/23
39 Comments
A news story just made for the late-night comedians.
Say, did you hear the one about…
Those of us who think torture is wrong are herby vindicated. No water-boarding or other torture choices could have gotten all that information from the Chieftan and made a friend of him at the same time.
Great, now they can rape and abuse women for hours.
Yup, America can’t afford to supply it’s own citizens with life saving drugs but has plenty of money to give erections to Afghans.
lol
I love it.
Anybody ever read Graham Greene’s great novel, still apt some fifty years after its publication, The Quiet American?
York Harding. Alden Pyle. Harding’s “third force,” and Pyle’s fatal belief in it. And now Viagra as a “third force” in the ridiculous “war” on terrorism.
Oh well. Viagra’s likely to be far more effective in the well-being of Western democracy than would be a short-lived American government fomenting long-lived civil war (”the third force”).
Hmmm … the guy had four wives and they gave him four pills. Coincidence? I’ll bet they’re getting even more information from the wives.
This is the most vile policy yet. We already know how Afghan men dominate the women there anyway, so we give them something they can rape the ten year olds with longer? Are you freaking kidding me?
And then on top of it, our policy will not allow us to dispense birth control to women in these nations, not because they don’t want it, but because OUR PRESIDENT thinks its like abortion.
I”m so furious about this story I could just scream. The horror and the standards against women there is bad enough, but the disregard for those women from our own country is beyond the pale.
By the way, just why does a CIA officer need Viagra over there in the first place? Is he raping the women there too? Perhaps he is because that’s the only thing in my mind that would tell this guy that these chieftains need to go rape some more.
Political_mama=a joke….
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
HEHEEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!!!!!!
There is not a GD funny thing about this. Women have NO SAY in who they marry, who they have sex with. They can be killed for refusing sex with whoever they were sold off to, and they can be killed for being raped.
And you think its just hunky dorey that we’re giving their rapist and subjugators viagra? What the HELL Is wrong with you.
And sex is never a benefit for women in Afghanistan, they’re to be impregnated…they are to give pleasure to their men.
Sex slaves, if you will.
P_Mom can be a bit reactionary, but I think she has a point here…
I’ve heard of being poured a ’stiff one,’ but this is new. :)
No way I’m getting involved in this one!
Political mama – I agree with your take on this story. I am also wondering what this has to do with the war on terrorism?
What I find more disturbing is the fact that our wonderful commander in chief must think this is okay because he is, after all, the one in charge. Wasn’t the degrading of women one of the reasons Bush invaded Iraq? Wasn’t the fact women were treated like second-class citizens, couldn’t go to school, couldn’t vote, etc a major reason Bush gave for invading Iraq and bringing democracy to Iraq?
What part of democracy depends on men getting erections??
It’s the age-old story – men will do whatever men want but it will take the women to actually change the world.
Actually women in Iraq had far more freedom under Saddam than they do now. Iraqi women could work, were not forced into scarves, they held Government offices and went to school.
Now they’re wanting Sharia law back that will take away everything that women gained in Iraq before the war even started. It was actually THE most progressive nation for women’s rights in the Muslim world.
Isn’t that just great! Now our military has even the old men working at making Afghans!
Viagra is nasty stuff; it has Miracle Grow and Fix-it-flat in it.
Political_mama
Posted December 26, 2008 at 10:23 pm | Permalink
Actually women in Iraq had far more freedom under Saddam than they do now.
=========================
Yeah, as long as you were not Shiite, Kurd, Christian or any other group besides Sunni.
Saddam didn’t mess too much with the Christians. There are many articles in attest to the plight of Christians in Iraq now- if there are any left now. Saddam was brutal to women who were opposing him, that’s no lie. He did not actively seek to hurt the Christians but did nothing to protect them either….he did have some Christians in his cabinet. They were basically on their own. Nothing like now where they’re targets by the hardliners who have taken over.
WE screwed the Kurds when we left them high and dry. That blood is on our hands. The fact remains, as long as you kept your nose clean and were female, you had it better there than you would in any other Muslim nation.
“Viagra is nasty stuff; it has Miracle Grow and Fix-it-flat in it.”
My friend described Viagra as having two jacks to fix one flat.
You make good points, “Political_mama” –
But I think issues of gender equality risk getting distorted by generalizing about “Muslim” culture or “Arab” culture, and (more often than not) trans-theological fundamentalism of all creeds.
I’m just as interested in the psychology of Viagra as an interrogation tool. No torturing, no waterboarding. I give you a boner pill and you’re selling out your friends, our enemies, giving us names and phone number for four more of those magic blue pills!
And it works better than torture!
Some feared fundamentalist Taliban warlord admits he can’t get a chubby for his harem anymore and now he’s putting up Wilt Chamberlain numbers and giving you bin Laden’s zip code!
Yeah, in a lot of cultures women are still treated like chattel. Like cattle, even. But (until the assassinated her a year ago today) Benazir Bhutto was a lot more powerful in her culture than your typical Kosher-keeping wife in Queens.
I have a friend who is active in M.I.L.C. (The Mothers International Lactation Campaign), which advocates acceptance of nursing babies in public. They have all logic on the side of their cause. But in our culture women’s breasts get cause all sorts of strange hang-ups: religious, political, moral, biological, medical, sexual, aesthetic, genetic, economic and comedic.
Feed your newborn in the middle of services at your “family-friendly” mega-church and you’re likely to be burned at the stake by your fellow church ladies. But it some fundamentalist Muslim cultures, there’s no problem if Mom pulls out a boob and suckles her boychild in the marketplace… so long as her burkha covers her face and ankles.
At the risk of sounding more misogynistic than I really am, I’m tempted to think in the backwaters of Afghanistan, four Viagra tablets in return for important logistical intelligence is a overall pretty good.
Even if it’s not all that nice to ask the girls in his harem to take one for the team.
Also, “Political_mama” –
Not withstanding that Dennis Prager is a CON idiot, I wonder if outrage might be better directed to this sort of stuff…
http://www.mothertalkers.com/storyonly/2008/12/27/0329/1887
…before we object to the CIA giving Sheik Nobonah some magic blue pills.
It floors me how many men think that these innocent women be raped and ‘take one for the team’. I’ve had more than one liberal male say that so far.
Let me rape you with a hot poker and we’ll call it taking one for the team shall we?
I should’ve expected that, “Political_mama” –
Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass.
On the other hand, I think there are clubs in Los Angeles where you can make a fine living raping people with a hot poker. We’re in a Recession, remember; there still will be employment options.
Your response, while understood, might be tempered to read the whole context of the post you responded to.
Does it not register at all with you that males are such atavistic whore-dogs at our core that jihads and genocides and piracy and holocausts might be mitigated by a boner pill?!
Isn’t that on its face one of the most insane reality you’ve ever come across?
I would suggest Mr. Diarrhea, that there is much more rape of women in the West than in Muslim countries.
“beber” posits –
“…there is much more rape of women in the West than in Muslim countries.”
And you base that on… what?
Your statement sounds plausible enough. But it’s based on what?
In some cultures an arranged marriage with a 12-year-old is perfectly acceptable. Rape? Well, by my personal reckoning, yeah. But in that culture and under those laws? Maybe not.
(But you’d think even they would have a certain amount of ookiness-revulsion in their systems, wouldn’t you?)
Romeo and Julliet were what? 14 years old? I’ve read well-researched thesis which “prove” the Virgin Mary could have been no older than 16 when she gave birth. (That God; what a cad.)
Although its been established in the courts now for more than 30 years, some people still find it odd to consider “rape” within the context of a marriage. And that’s just in America.
Imagine trying to explain the concept of matrimonial rape in a culture that considers women objects of trade.
I didn’t realize that Viagra really worked. Does it?
So, what if they exceed the four-hour woody rule, do they explode or something? “Massive cases of exploding rods among Afghanistan warlords!”
Hell, if we OD em enough, the men will die off and women can run the country. Works for me:-)
#
Monkeyhawk
Posted December 27, 2008 at 8:35 am | Permalink
Isn’t that on its face one of the most insane reality you’ve ever come across?
========================================================
After eight years of Bush, any reality is plausible.
Nothing new. Our relationship with the Afghan warlords have, over the years, been rather up and down.
Quite a new take on “win their hearts and minds”.
Hell, if we could get the damned cons in THIS country laid, we could solve all sorts of problems.
No Monkey, I tend to have a higher opinion of males than that. I also know in reality, men think about sex …what is it, like once every ten seconds?
It doesn’t matter though, you can deny some of that primal instinct to bone every woman within ten feet of you.
Its probably a god-send to these women over there when their old grandpa-husband goes limp. Our efforts should be focused on making life for them better, not worse. And certainly not validating that these men have a ‘right’ to bone their property just because.
It’s obvious to me that many people who post here as authorities about living conditions in Islamic cultures have never been to either Afghanistan or to Iraq. It’s obvious that they have never made any personal observations or experienced either the pre-war or post-war cultural environments in either country. Some people’s concepts are so incredibly twisted. ‘Nuff said.
Roger that, WAR.
In fact, most of the CONs who talk about how “muslims think” have never even been out of the freaking country . . .
Re: the orginial thread
“Make love, not war.”
Still true today . . .
P-mom,
Just to add a small historical note here, marriage in european culture was strictly a deal made by families for economic or political gain until the crusaders brought back that corrupting concept of romantic love from the Islamic poetic tradition. If it weren’t for those damn Muslims, our women would still be bargaining chips. Since we’ve only recently surpassed Islam in the area of women’s rights, it seems just a bit hypocritical for us to be lobbing grenades at them for their treatment of women. We’ve still got a lot of housecleaning of our own to attend to first!
If we’re going to pass out Viagra in the Middle East, then we should also pass out the birth control. It’s bad enough that our government encourages the subjugation of women, the least they could do is offer them protection from pregnancy.
I agree Jed, but I’ll say for certain that the conditions for women there now is downright awful and no I won’t stop advocating for them- even if we do still have work to do at home as well.